Ten Minutes into Central Park

Ten minutes into Central Park I spot my first shirtless, cutoffs-wearing, middle-aged rollerblader, finally. I say first because I assume there will be more. Here he is in some area paved with hexagon stones, blading in a circle, listening to his wraparound headphones, and every now and then he mouths a phrase or brings arm or two up in some kind of choreography. I've probably seen him go around twenty times. Who knows how long he's been here? Who knows how long he'll stay? I'm waiting for someone to look at him. No one's looking at him. Maybe they're thinking, "Oh, there's ol' Steve again, good ol' Steve Cratch. Never been the same since his wife left him yesterday. Still takes care of himself though. Look at that! He should be wearing wrist pads." And I look up and he's gone. Gone back to his one bedroom on the Lower East Side, back to the stoop, back to a shirt. I'll probably never see him again.

Hearing lots of Brits. Italians, too. Carry on.

Hey, hula girl, hurling your hula all over your sweet bod. Actually, I can't tell how attractive you are. But you are in short shorts and socks and a bikini top, and your breasts and face seem nice enough across Bethesda Square. I don't see anywhere for us to give you money. Are you just practicing? Ooh, now you're doing high kicks. Now you're sitting in a "V" on the dirty ground putting stickers around your legs—oh, there's the tips sign. A foreign woman laughs. This girl must have a job, or jobs, or another skill. She must be good at something else. Mustn't she? Obviously one cannot make a living hulaing a hoop up and down various body parts, that doesn't pay your New York bills. This means one of two things. One, the hula hoop is her one passion, her soul pursuit, her raison d'être. She's slowly working her way up the hula ladder (but really, does anyone fly to the top of that ladder?), and she comes out here every day to practice and get noticed. That's One. Two, it's just something she's kind of good at so she may as well make some money off of it. In which case, what's stopping me from busting out my clarinet in Millenium Park? Probably that I don't really need the money or the embarrassment. I can play in my house or in my car. You don't always need a reason other than you like it.

Look at these fucking kids with their helmets and their pads and their clothes. They have no idea how to rollerblade.

The gentleman on the bench to my right. An older, white-haired, mustachioed, Caucasian gentleman. The other is a younger Asian gentleman. Speaking I don't know what the hell they're speaking. At first I thought it was English with a brogue. Then Irish. Then the Dark Tongue of Mordor, which should not be uttered here. Whatever it was (the Asian is gone and the other—who is not as white-haired as I previously thought—is silent) it was very guttural, very glottal, very much back of the throat and fat of the tongue. He's reading a book entitled De rette jaren. Norwegian. Danish. I hope it's Norwegian.

"You couldn't ask for a nicer day out here," someone says. Well, you could, but it would be kind of a dick move.